1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to vehicle diagnosing apparatuses, vehicle diagnosing systems, and diagnosing methods for determining the presence or absence of an abnormality in a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are some vehicles, such as cars, equipped with a diagnostic device for detecting an abnormality in various on-board sensors or actuators (hereafter referred to as “diagnosed parts”). The diagnostic device monitors the status of the diagnosed parts. Upon detection of an abnormality in a diagnosed part, the diagnostic device may save abnormality information within the device or transmit the abnormality information to a server.
Japanese Patent No. 3799795 discusses a vehicle diagnosing system in which abnormality information is collected by a server. A user may voluntarily bring his or her vehicle with an abnormality into a service shop or the like. Upon elimination of the abnormality in the service shop or the like, “dealt-with” information is transmitted to the server so that an unnecessary transmission of a repair request to the user can be avoided.
After a part causing the abnormality is repaired or replaced, the service shop determines whether the repair or the part replacement is complete based on a result of diagnosis of a diagnosed part using a diagnosing tool (hereafter referred to as “repair completion determination”).
FIG. 6 schematically shows a repair completion determination process according to a related art. A repairer R at a service shop removes a defective part from a vehicle 11 (i). The repairer R then attaches an appropriate repair part to the vehicle 11 (ii). The repairer R diagnoses a diagnosed part (which is not necessarily the repair part with which the defective part has been replaced) using a diagnosing tool 15 (iii). The repairer R then confirms a behavior of the vehicle 11 based on his or her experience, or makes sure that the repair is in accordance with a manual or the like (iv). When the vehicle 11 is ascertained as being in a normal condition, the repairer R returns the vehicle 11 to the user U (v).
In such a repair completion determination system which is based on a diagnosed result obtained from the diagnosed part using the diagnosing tool 15, a predetermined determination standard is stored in the diagnosing tool 15, and the diagnosed result is compared with the determination standard. Consequently, it is difficult to ascertain with the diagnosing tool 15 an incident or phenomenon that was not known or expected at the time of drawing up the determination standard stored in the diagnosing tool 15.
For example, a vehicle may be determined as being in a normal condition upon completion of a first repair with the diagnosing tool 15. It is possible, however, that an event or a circumstance that was not considered in the determination standard at the time of the first repair may occur or arise several years after a repair part was attached to the vehicle during the first repair. For example, the upper-limit vehicle speed may be changed by a change in traffic law, or the environment in which the vehicle or the repair part is used may change over time.
The diagnosed result obtained with the diagnosing tool 15 only concerns the individual diagnosed part. Actually, even when the diagnosed result of a particular diagnosed part is normal, whether the repair or part replacement has been normally completed must be comprehensively determined in view of the appropriateness of not just the diagnosed part alone but also other relevant vehicle parts under every possible circumstance.
However, it is not always possible to consider or reproduce such “every possible circumstance” under the available repair conditions that are usually constrained both temporally and spatially. Spending a long time in trying to consider all such possible circumstances may not be realistic from the viewpoint of the vehicle user waiting for the completion of the repair.
FIG. 7 shows a table of diagnosed parts and the time required to diagnose each of them using the diagnosing tool 15. As shown in FIG. 7, it takes 1.0 sec to diagnose a sensor A, and 2.0 sec to diagnose a sensor B. For a sensor C, it takes 80 hours of a continuous run of the vehicle, before an accurate diagnosed result indicating a normality or an abnormality can be acquired. However, the continuous run of 80 hours for a diagnosis is unrealistic. As to a system Q, no diagnosed result is acquired because the system Q requires a high-temperature environment (such as 40° C.) or a low temperature environment (such as minus 30° C.) to acquire an accurate diagnosed result.
If a repair cannot be completed unless such extremely limited environments as mentioned above are reproduced in a service shop or the like, the repair is virtually un-completable.
Thus, in the conventional repair completion determination process, whether a repair or a part replacement has been normally completed is determined directly from a diagnosed result obtained with the diagnosing tool 15. As a result, it has been difficult to make a repair completion determination in which considerations are given to various circumstances of use of the repair part that are not initially assumed, such as an event or an environment change that becomes relevant only a long time afterward.